For those who might think this is a copy of Saala Khadoos: both Saala Khadoos and Guru (this Telugu film) are directed by the same filmmaker, Sudha Kongara. In 2010, she approached Telugu actor Venkatesh to do this role, but he couldn't do it at the time due to health issues. So Sudha went ahead and made her film in Tamil/Hindi. Afterwards, instead of just dubbing it into Telugu, the director herself wanted to remake her film in Telugu with Venkatesh, Guru.